How to play the Bracket City game
Bracket City is a nested-clue puzzle. Every board is a single sentence hidden behind brackets, and each bracket holds a clue. Solve the clue and the bracket collapses into plain words, sometimes revealing smaller brackets nested inside it. When every bracket is solved, the sentence reads as one true trivia fact.
The steps
- Read the outer clue. Every puzzle starts with one highlighted bracket holding a clue. Read it and work out the short word or phrase it describes.
- Solve the bracket. Type your answer. A correct answer collapses the bracket into plain words in the sentence; a wrong answer just shakes, with no penalty beyond your score.
- Follow the nested clues. If the bracket you solved contained smaller brackets, they appear in its place. Keep solving from the outside in as the sentence fills in around them.
- Reveal the whole sentence. Solve every bracket in the tree and the full sentence is revealed as one true trivia fact. Fewer hints and wrong answers earn a higher rank.
Hints
Stuck on a bracket? The Hint button works in two tiers. The first tap reveals the first letter of the selected bracket's answer. The second tap reveals the whole answer and collapses the bracket for you. Each tier costs points toward your final rank, so a clean, hint-free solve earns the top rank.
Ranks
When you finish a puzzle you earn a rank based on how cleanly you solved it — fewer hints and fewer wrong answers mean a higher rank.
- Mastermind — Solved with no hints and no wrong answers.
- Insider — A sharp solve — barely a stumble.
- Regular — A steady, confident solve.
- Local — You leaned on a few hints to get home.
- Newcomer — Every solved sentence counts — welcome to the city.
Tips
- Start with the outermost bracket. Every puzzle begins with a single highlighted bracket. Read its clue and solve it first — collapsing it reveals the shape of the sentence and any smaller clues nested inside, which is where the real momentum comes from.
- Use the words you have already revealed. Once a bracket collapses, its plain words stay on screen as context for everything still hidden. A half-solved sentence like "a spider is an arachnid with eight [ ] and no [ ]" tells you exactly what kind of answers the remaining brackets want.
- Answer with the simplest word that fits. Clues are straight definitions, not riddles. The answer is almost always the plainest single word or short phrase that matches — "land," "water," "heart" — so type the obvious thing before overthinking it.
- Let the fact guide you. Every finished sentence is one true, well-known fact. If your answers are heading somewhere that would not be true, that is a signal to reread a clue — the correct solution always reads as common knowledge.
- Spend a hint to break a logjam. If one bracket has you stuck, the first-letter hint often unlocks it without giving the whole thing away. Save the full reveal for a bracket you truly cannot crack — both cost points toward your rank, but finishing beats stalling.